A year ago, Alex O’Meara — along with his brother Tim — opened what has become popular restaurant and brewery in Lakeport. Before that he earned a degree in Computer Information Systems at Stanislaus State University and worked in the IT industry in the Bay Area. But he is hardly new to the area. O’Meara’s have been part of Lake County for three generations, as dairy farmers and then walnut farmers. Alex O’Meara’s grandfather was valedictorian at Upper Lake High School. His mother also earned valedictorian at Upper Lake. From an early age, O’Meara loved the entrepreneurial world, working as a DJ in Lake County as a teen, running his own computer repair business later. Now, O’Meara Bros. Brewing Company is wrapping up its first year with a celebration on Sunday.
1. After a year is it any easier?
Easier than opening? Yes. It’s amazing how much we’ve learned and how much more comfortable I feel. Getting from point A to point B was a learning process. And there’s still a lot of learning to do.
2. Were there times if you wondered whether you’d reach this point?
Oh, yeah. We knew there was a lot of excitement when we opened, but that the real test was what does six months look like? What does a year look like? Now comes the point of building and maintaining a customer base. Now we start the longer game.
3. Is that what you like about entrepreneurship?
Absolutely. That’s the heart of it — the everyday challenge. If I have a competitive nature, it’s not in sports, it’s being in business and making a difference for our employees and the community.
4. Well it has certainly been an extraordinary year.
In a lot of ways. For our staff, for our customers — Lake County has been through an interesting year. We’ve served so many evacuees, so many firefighters. It’s been interesting, it’s been unusual — a very different year.
5. Do you get a chance to breathe?
We’re just starting to do that, to look ahead and say ‘let’s think about what we’re going to do as a company.’ The first business plan was ‘how do we make it work?’ We are just starting to look at the next 10 years. It’s a nice feeling.
6. So what are you going to do?
Oh, boy — we’re still kicking that around. Our main goal is to continue to improve.
7. What leads to success?
Boy — in the day to day, it’s hard work. That hard work is upholding standards. ‘We will perform at this level.’ ‘Yeah, but …’ No. You have to uphold standards. Now, doing research is how you sustain something. If you do research, do your homework — you know, that’s how we got here.
8. You’re a numbers guy. Did you miss that ‘80 percent of new restaurants fail in the first year’ thing?
That was the big scare, yes. But that drove us to do research on why. Not every restaurant fails.
9. Has this first year been a blur?
Pretty much. The first month is blocked out from our minds. That’s why we take notes.
10. Would you do anything differently?
I wouldn’t trade it for the world. My brother and I, we’ve made mistakes. But when we did something wrong, we recognized it and talked about it. I would do a lot of things differently, yes, because we’ve been through the problem. But I’m proud of it.
